THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION:
WHY DID COMMUNISM FAIL?A New Democracy Flyer
[newdemocracyworld.org]

To Our Readers: This flyer is the third in a series on the future of
revolution. The flyer discusses a piece of history that is not well known but is
nonetheless important for us today.

Most Americans have rightly always rejected Communism. Yet the disastrous
result of Communism has strongly influenced people's view of what human society
can be. Defenders of capitalism use the outcome of Communism to
"prove" that revolutions always turn out bad and that capitalism is
the best possible society.

As the need grows to create a democratic alternative to capitalism,
understanding why Communism failed is crucial for understanding that democratic
revolution can succeed.

A FATAL ABSENCE OF DEMOCRACY

Millions of working people worldwide took heart at the Russian Revolution in
October, 1917. Yet Communism soon became a caricature of its promise. The
revolution failed because it was undemocratic.

Working people and peasants toppled the Czarist regime in February, 1917.
Workers took over factories and established Workers Committees to run them.
Peasants took over many large estates. Ordinary people organized
"Soviets"-democratically elected councils-as organs of democracy.
When the new government of industrialists and landowners kept Russia in the
intensely unpopular World War I, there was a second, Communist-led revolution in
October, 1917. The Bolsheviks (Communists) fought for control. They put the
Workers Committees under the control of Communist-led trade unions. They
undermined the peasants' organizations. They took power away from the Soviets
and placed it in the hands of the Party. Sailors and workers at Kronstadt
revolted in 1921 against the Communists and were mercilessly butchered.

What motivated the Communists' attack on workers? The Communists' goal was
not democracy but economic development and "socialism" under Party
control.

Communism is based on Marxist ideas that economic development is the basis of
human development, and that workers are not fit to govern until they are
"developed" by economic conditions. In backwards countries like Russia
at the time of its revolution, the Communists thought the primary goal of the
revolution should be industrial development and modernization under the
direction of the Party. The Communists did not trust the people to govern.
Equality and democracy would have to be put off until the "backwards"
populace was ready.

Even in advanced capitalist countries, Marxists have a negative view of
working people, seeing them as "dehumanized" and motivated merely by
self-interest. Its negative view of people has led Marxism to play an
anti-democratic and counterrevolutionary role.

THE KEY TO REVOLUTION

While Communism today has few adherents, Marxism unfortunately continues to
be the only coherent and systematic model of social change posed as a
revolutionary challenge to capitalism.

Our goal in New Democracy is to spread an alternative to Marxism which makes
democratic revolution possible. The basis for a new revolutionary movement is a
new understanding of the role of ordinary people in society.

The new understanding of ordinary people is simply this: that most people
have values of solidarity and equality opposed to those of capitalism and
Communism; that, far from being backwards or selfish, most people in their daily
lives already struggle to create a new and better society; that the
irrepressible struggle of people to humanize the world, rather than forces of
economic development, drives history; and that ordinary people, rather than
intellectuals or a revolutionary party, are the source of democratic values and
of a new and democratic society.

MAKE DEMOCRACY THE GOAL

Contrary to what capitalist elites would have us believe, successful
revolution is possible. To be successful, the explicit goal of revolution must
be real democracy, so that ordinary people can shape all of society with
equality and solidarity. Only with democracy as the explicit goal can we insure
that society will reach its highest ends, and that revolution will never again
be betrayed.